Jeff Bogdan explores Avalon's control content model, a concept that can be nearly missed by the developer on first encounter, but one that provides extreme flexibility when meeting the demands of richer scenarios.

O'Reilly's upcoming Mono: A Developer's Notebook walks you through nearly 50 mini-projects that will introduce you to the most important and compelling aspects of the 1.0 release. This article, which shows you how to install Mono on Windows, how Gtk# works, and how to write a simple Gtk# program, is just the sort of mini-project you'll find in the book.

The long-awaited Slackware 10 release has hit the streets, so to speak. Though Patrick Volkerding's Slackware wasn't the very first Linux distribution (it was originally based on the SLS distribution) it has outlived all of its predecessors. First released on July 16, 1993, Slackware has come a long way since its floppy-based origins -- though in some ways, it has also remained very much the same. More here...

The bug-fixed GLib-2.4.4 is now available for download here. UPDATE: And here is GTK+ 2.4.4.

"Poor usability is a huge barrier to wider open source adoption. Our backends have matured and we consistently achieve technical excellence. Usability is the one area we have not yet mastered. For some reason, we treat it as a mystery instead of looking at it as a problem we can solve the same way we solve all other technical problems." Read the editorial at NewsForge.

Discussions for the future of XOrg are up at Freedesktop.org.

The loss of critical data can prove devastating. Still, millions of professionals ignore backing up their data. While individual reasons vary, one of the most common explanations is that performing routine backups can be a real chore. Because machines excel at mundane and repetitive tasks, the key to reducing the inherent drudgery and the natural human tendency for procrastination, is to automate the backup process.

This article provides an overview of the generics feature in Visual Basic 2005, and explains the basic concepts involved in defining and using generics and their usefulness to the Visual Basic developer.

A video (20MB, DivX) made by an OS4 betatester, demonstrating the native graphics drivers has been made available. This is not an official OS4 demonstration, just one users machine. The picture quality is low, but it gives an idea of the current graphics speed.

Jython is an alternate languages for the Java Runtime Environment. Its an implementation of the popular scripting language Python, but running on a JVM. For Python developers Jython is the best possible entry point to the Java platform; for Java developers it may be the strongest incentive to learn another language. This article introduces Jython and shows you what it can do to enhance your productivity on the Java platform.

Preproduction models of Apple’s recently announced 2.5GHz liquid cooled Power Mac G5 computers are running a new version of the Mac OS X operating system, according to sources. UPDATE: More info about the 10.3.5 version.

"Analysis Try to imagine a geeky version of famed salesman Ron Popeil. Keep Popeil's exuberance, keep his pitchman savvy and keep his verbal overflow. Then erase his age, sturdy frame and Ronco Food Dehydrator and replace all this with a young, lanky kernel engineer hawking something called DTrace, and you have Bryan Cantrill." Read the rest at TheRegister.

The VAX system at Triumph Components has been in use since about 1996, and information systems manager Dan Blackshear couldn't be happier with it. There's just one problem: He's got to scrap it. The system is fast, works well with Windows and "fits into the modern environment very cleanly" at the El Cajon, aerospace parts maker, said Blackshear. "But it's a dinosaur, and eventually it has to go".

Trolltech has announced the availability of the first Qt 4 Technical Preview. Qt 4, the next major release of the popular cross-platform C++ application framework.